Sphere scoops 'Thelma & Louise'-style debut thriller

Sphere will publish No Country For Girls, the debut thriller by Emma Styles, in June 2022.

Editor Callum Kenny acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Euan Thorneycroft at A. M. Heath, 

“No Country For Girls is 'Thelma and Louise' for a new generation: a gripping, twisty road trip thriller set in the harsh Australian Outback,” Sphere said. “It introduces Charlie and Nao, two girls from different sides of the tracks who are bound together by one tragic accident." 

Scheduled for publication in June 2022, the blurb reads: “A man is dead and now that Charlie and Nao are unwilling accomplices in his murder there's only one thing to do: hit the road in the victim's pickup, with a bag of stolen gold stashed under the passenger seat. Suddenly outlaws with the full weight of the law on their backs, the girls must make their way across Australia's unforgiving landscape using only their wits to survive. They will be forced to subvert every expectation placed upon them to evade capture and escape with their lives.” 

Styles wrote No Country For Girls for the Crime Fiction MA course at UEA and won the Little, Brown UEA Crime Fiction Award 2020 for an unpublished manuscript. She is inspired by the remote areas of Western Australia where she grew up and her writing explores young women transgressors who are looking for a way back, a way through or a way out. She has also worked as a veterinarian, track-work rider and meditation teacher.  

Kenny said: “I am delighted to bring Emma to the Sphere list. No Country For Girls is the book I didn’t know I was looking for: an original and cinematic page-turner that completely overturns every trope about women in crime fiction. Nao and Charlie are flawed, courageous and bad-ass protagonists; I can’t wait for readers to fall in love with them like we all have at Sphere.” 

Styles commented: ‘I am beyond thrilled No Country For Girls has found a home with Sphere. Callum Kenny is the dream editor for the book and it’s been clear from the start he gets what I’m trying to do with these characters. I’m so excited to be working with Callum and the team at Sphere to bring Nao and Charlie to the world and more than a little star-struck to find myself among the incredible talent and experience on Sphere’s crime and thriller list.”